Red Army

Thirteen

Lieutenant Colonel Shilko had been waiting patiently for over an hour, but the column remained stationary. He still had two of his self-propelled batteries, his target acquisition gear, and the battalion control and fire-direction elements tucked in behind him. He had no idea where his third battery was now. All attempts at radio contact or courier linkup at former locations had resulted only in wasted breath and missing couriers. And he had been ordered to send several officers, including one battery commander, forward to fill out depleted units and to act as forward observers. It sounded as though the toll among officer cadres was very high. But Shilko accepted fate. He was pleased enough to have most of his battalion herded together and reasonably under control. He would have liked to move faster, to reach the next locations designated for his fine guns, to run them back into action. But he saw no point in joining the inevitable shouting match up ahead on the road, wherever the holdup was focused. The column would move when it was ready.

The sounds of battle were so constant that he hardly heard them anymore. The thunder of the guns had long since worn down his already-poor hearing, and he contented himself with another cigarette. The night had grown wonderfully fresh since the rain stopped, and his peasant’s sense told him there would be a fine morning in a few more hours. Pleasant weather to be out of doors.

Shilko had insured that his soldiers were fed with a bit of warm gruel from the old cooking trailers and that they had a sip or two of hot tea before pulling off of their positions. Shilko had never understood why some officers insisted on making life as miserable as possible for themselves and their men. The gaunt, baggy-pants types. Well, Shilko thought, a soldier’s life was hard enough. If you had to meet your fate, why not on a full stomach? In the end, the slight delay had made no difference that Shilko could see. The march schedules and overall organization of traffic were little more than some staff officer’s fantasies now.

An officer dashed down the line of vehicles. He hastened past Shilko’s command car, and Shilko thought nothing more of it until the officer suddenly reappeared, slapping at the side of the vehicle to get Shilko’s attention.

Shilko leaned out of the vehicle, cigarette stuck in his mouth like a stalk of straw.

“Are you the commander of this artillery?” the officer shouted. He was an agitated, ferret-faced major with all the trimmings of the commandant’s service.

“These are my boys, Major,” Shilko stated matter-of-factly, waiting to see what the other officer wanted. He had already made up his mind that he was not going to clear off the road and lose his place in the column, if that was what all the fuss was about.

But the major had another objective entirely. “Comrade Commander,” he said, almost crying out, “we’ve got to do something. The enemy are up ahead. The motorized rifle troops can’t hold them.”

“Up ahead? Where?” Shilko demanded, quickening, reaching for his map case.

The major produced a map of his own and traced over it with a hooded flashlight.

“Here. Here, I think. In this general area. Can you fire in support?”

Shilko scrutinized the map. “There, you say?”

The major nodded urgently. But, in fact, as Shilko could see now, the target area was not exactly up ahead, but several kilometers off to the south, along a road that intersected with the one on which they were standing.

“How do you know the enemy’s there?” Shilko demanded.

“Comrade Commander, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. I went forward to straighten out the traffic. The motorized rifle regiment’s trains were backing up from the south, blocking all movement to the west — an impossible situation. I’m responsible for the movement of traffic on this route. I went to see what was happening. The motorized riflemen are hanging on by their fingernails. It must be an entire German division counterattacking.”

Shilko rolled his fading cigarette in his mouth, pondering the map. It was clear to him that the local terrain would not support an enemy division in the attack. And, allowing for the commandant officer’s natural exaggeration, this was probably more a matter of a reinforced battalion, perhaps leading a brigade-sized attack. But the enemy division would be spread out over multiple routes, if, indeed, there was an enemy division. In any case, there was a road running through a forested area. Any attacker would be backed up down that road. The terrain was extremely restrictive. In greater depth, there were several small towns that would also restrict any movement.

Shilko didn’t trust the major’s precision when it came to the current locations of the enemy. But it was clear to Shilko that the enemy, in some size, was definitely out there somewhere. Shilko took a decision.

Moving with determination now, he climbed out of his vehicle and rousted Captain Romilinsky. He ordered the fire direction center prepared for hasty action. The batteries were to come to a high state of readiness and await their missions. Romilinsky snapped to the task. Meanwhile, Shilko set to work on the hood of a vehicle, plotting fires by the light of a pocket lamp. He figured that, if he shot the long, straight stretch of road through the forest just south of where the major claimed the enemy were advancing, he would range safely beyond the forward Soviet positions, except for any that were cut off — and that couldn’t be helped. The road would provide the likeliest concentration of enemy targets, and if he could strike everything behind the enemy’s leading combat troops, those troops could be forced to a standstill. At the very least, if you jammed up the road, you slowed down the enemy counterattack. Shilko was rapidly becoming an expert on the criticality of roads in modern war — especially in the northern extreme of the Germanies. Now his instincts told him he had a good target.

Shilko’s staff moved like a farmer’s family, well-accustomed to fitting their chores together, making everything come out right. Shilko ordered the guns to elevate their barrels before pivoting into firing positions in order to avoid smashing one of the long tubes into the trees that lined the roadway. The heavy barrels elevated like elephant trunks, ready to snort fire upon command. Sleepy-eyed officers shook themselves awake and leaned over their survey equipment, doing their best in the darkness. Shilko doubted that his boys had been paying very close attention to their maps during the march, since every man was weary and willing to simply follow the leader. Paternally, Shilko hinted to them where they were presently located.

Lieutenants and sergeants shouted instructions and waved tiny signal lamps as the big guns aligned themselves in the constricted space. The tracks bit into the surface of the road, and the vehicle engines growled as if in bad temper at being disturbed in the middle of the night. Each noise, each lurching movement, attested to the power of the guns, even before a single round went skyward. The guns reminded Shilko of great, barely manageable animals.

Captain Romilinsky approached. “The first battery is prepared to accept its fire mission, Comrade Commander.”

Shilko nodded. He took Romilinsky by the arm, heading for the fire-direction track.

“Comrade Commander, shouldn’t we at least call the division and inform them that we’re firing a hasty mission?”

Shilko chuckled. For all of his marvelous staff skills, Romilinsky clearly did not understand how to make the system work when the situation was critical.

“You’re thinking like a Prussian,” Shilko said with a smile for the younger man. “Look around you. Personally, I haven’t recognized a passing unit for hours. I don’t know where division is located, and if I did, I wouldn’t waste the time to attempt to get a mission cleared under these circumstances. You might as well try to get an apartment in Moscow on an hour’s notice.”

“But there could be complications.”

Shilko liked Romilinsky. The captain was a terrifically serious young man, always painfully sincere and concerned. Shilko expected him to be an excellent battalion commander in his own right someday, if he didn’t disappear entirely into the swift current of the General Staff officer program.

“Hesitation… the reluctance to take responsibility… is something of a Russian disease,” Shilko said. “I have never suffered from it myself. Perhaps that’s why I’m an over-age lieutenant colonel. But it has always been my conviction that, when things go bad and good men are in demand, there will be enough of us who are willing to say, ‘To hell with it,’ and do what we believe is right. Tonight I intend to harvest the maximum benefit from all the years of fine training the Soviet Army has provided me. After all, the only things a good artilleryman needs are targets and a known location.” Shilko released the younger man’s arm, tapping it playfully away. “Did Lenin ask permission to make a revolution? In any case, I want you to run things here while I work my way forward and get those motorized rifle boys straightened out. Listen for me on the radio. And give them hell.”

Major Kolovets was unsure of which decision to take. His reinforced tank battalion, tasked to operate as a forward detachment, had simply driven into the enemy’s rear after a bit of inconclusive skirmishing. All of the sounds of combat were tens of kilometers behind them now. The situation seemed absurd to Kolovets, so much so that at first he thought it must be a trap. He led his tanks over a series of good secondary roads, unchallenged. Now and again, flickers of light showed through the trees or across open fields, but no one fired a shot. Kolovets ordered his men to hold their fire unless the enemy fired first. They had driven so far that Kolovets noticed a change in the countryside, which rose slightly and had a drier feel to it. Briefly, the column became disoriented in the darkness, and Kolovets feared that his career would be ruined. But his forward security element struck the autobahn’s north-south course, and it appeared the unit was in a very good situation after all.

He attempted to call in and report his location. But the airwaves were crowded with static and bizarre electronic whines. He did not know whether he was the victim of electronic attack, or if the interference was accidental. He only knew that he could not talk to his higher commander, and he felt unsure of the real object and latitude of his orders now.

He moved the main body through a narrow, unprotected autobahn underpass, working along gravel roads and trails. The path of least resistance soon drew the column toward the southwest. Several times, the flank security detachments reported enemy vehicles moving on parallel roads. Kolovets feared losing radio communications with his own security elements, as well as with higher headquarters, but local communications cut through the white noise in the air with reasonable dependability. He was terrified of being discovered, then ambushed in the forest. The situation reminded him of fairy tales told him by his mother, in which bad things always happened at night in the woods.

Kolovets repeated his instructions to all units not to engage unless they were fired upon. Then he tried once again to raise anyone in a position of greater authority than his own.

When his calls to the rear brought no response whatsoever, Kolovets halted the column along a hard-surface road in a forested area. He ordered the trail elements to close up, except for the rear security detachment, which was to guard the autobahn underpass, in case the unit had to retrace its route of march. Then he put down the microphone. He decided that the radios were junk. Why couldn’t the Soviet Union at least produce decent military radios that could talk through a bit of interference? Kolovets was certain that the enemy didn’t have such problems. Everything they had would be brand-new and a marvel of technology. He decided that the battalion communications officer was going to get a stinging official evaluation out of this.

Kolovets leaned out of his turret, staring into the darkness as if he might find an answer in its depths. To his amazement, a vehicle drove straight toward the column with its headlights blazing.

It was a civilian automobile, driving along as though on an outing. Suddenly, the driver hit the brakes. The automobile had been traveling at a high rate of speed, and it was comical to watch the vehicle twist and turn, attempting to weave its way to safety between the armored vehicles and the trees lining the road. The driver finally got the vehicle under control, and he hastily backed and turned. Only when the automobile had nearly escaped, shifting gears to speed off, did a burst of automatic-weapons fire send it crashing into the trees on the side of the road.

Kolovets reached for the microphone, ready to curse the man who had disobeyed his orders by firing. But he stopped himself. There had been no choice, really. The driver would have revealed their presence. Perhaps he was even a spy.

The lieutenant in command of the left flank security element reported in. Kolovets was slow to answer, filled with concern over who might have heard the firing. Belatedly, the little automobile burst into flames.

Kolovets slumped against the turret ring. Now they would have to move. He answered the lieutenant’s radio call, hoping it wasn’t a major problem. He just wanted everything to go smoothly.

But things were not destined to go smoothly. The left flank security element had discovered a backed-up column of enemy vehicles just to the south. There were artillery pieces, engineer vehicles, and kilometers of trucks. None of them showed any concern about an enemy presence. They were just sitting at a halt between an autobahn crossing point and a small town. Some of the drivers had even gotten out of their vehicles without their weapons. The lieutenant insisted that the column was defenseless.

Kolovets was not so sure. He had never been in combat. As an officer of tank troops, he had been able to steer clear of Afghanistan, since there were not too many tank units in the Soviet contingent, and there were always plenty of ambitious officer volunteers. Further, Kolovets had never commanded a forward detachment, even in an exercise. His receipt of the mission had resulted solely from the accidental configuration of the march serials, from his unit’s immediate availability.

Kolovets weighed alternatives. He wished he had one of the fancy decision-making support computers that higher echelons used to figure things out. That way, if things went wrong, he could blame the computer. Now he felt trapped. He could attack the enemy column. Of course, that could turn out badly. What if there were enemy tanks? On the other hand, if he didn’t attack, the lieutenant might report him or let something slip. Then he would be in trouble for not showing initiative. It could even be portrayed as cowardice, or dereliction of the assigned mission. Of course, Kolovets thought, he could always keep going toward the Weser River. Perhaps he would not encounter any further enemy activity. If he did make contact with the enemy near the Weser, however, he would be even farther from friendly support.

Kolovets felt as though a great injustice was being done to him. He believed that he was quite a good officer, all in all, even if he wasn’t a fanatic about it like the snots who were always working on correspondence courses or reading the deadly dull stuff that came out of the military publishing houses. He was also quite conscientious and careful about the misappropriation of military goods. He never got greedy or took anything that could reasonably be missed. A bit of gasoline here and there was the commander’s prerogative, just so a man could make ends meet. Kolovets did not mind all of the nonsense the system put a man through. But he did not believe that it should be his responsibility to make decisions of this sort. He was a good officer who followed orders.

The lieutenant called in an updated report, virtually begging Kolovets to attack the stalled enemy column.

In response, Kolovets tried one more time to reach his next higher commander. The attempt failed as bluntly as had all of the others.

Kolovets hated the lieutenant for putting him in such an awkward position. Probably some nasty little Komsomol twit. The kind who would run to report the slightest perceived failings in his legitimate superiors. The army wasn’t what it used to be. All of the restructuring nonsense had ruined it. Nowadays everybody was a tattler, and careers ended abruptly for trivial reasons. Things had gone downhill to the point where lieutenants could criticize higher officers in the pages of Red Star, the military’s primary newspaper. No one seemed to have any respect for the tried-and-true way of doing things.

Kolovets felt cursed. He did not have a real choice that he could see.

Perhaps there really were no enemy tanks in the halted column. The enemy couldn’t have tanks everywhere, could they? And even if things turned out badly, they couldn’t very well punish you for fighting.

Reluctantly, feeling as though his fate had been stolen from his hands, Kolovets ordered his unit to move out of the woods and begin prebattle deployment across the high fields to the south. He had his best company commander on the guiding flank. The boy was a good map-reader, and Kolovets was not about to trust his own skills in the dark and at a time like this. He made it very plain to the boy what he wanted: no nonsense, just get everybody out on line and hit the enemy from an oblique angle. Kolovets tried to phrase the orders over the radio so that everyone listening would know that, should the attack fail, it would obviously be the company commander’s fault.

As the firing calmed, moving on to other killing grounds, Seryosha suggested to Leonid that they hide in the basement. Occasional local shots, like strings of firecrackers, underscored the magnitude of any decision to move at all. Leonid felt miserable, lying in his wet tunic with splinters of plastic from the cassettes he had stuffed in his trouser pockets jabbing him in the thighs and groin.

“What if they’re still downstairs?” he said. “What if they’re just being quiet and waiting?”

Seryosha considered the possibility. “I can’t hear anything,” he answered nervously. “Can you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If they come back, they’re bound to find us up here. Anyway, there’s more protection from the artillery and everything down in the basement.”

“You know how to get there?”

“I think so.”

Leonid did not much like the idea of being shut up in a dark, foreign basement. But he realized that Seryosha was right. The fighting had so shaken the floor beneath them that he had expected the house to fall apart under the strain.

Simultaneously, the two boys began to rise.

“You’re clacking,” Seryosha said. “What have you got in your pockets?”

Leonid pushed at his comrade. “Just go.”

Seryosha led the way, stepping cautiously down the littered stairs. There was so much plaster and glass scattered about that it was impossible to be really quiet. Seryosha took one step at a time, and Leonid imitated him, pausing at each new level to await a violent response.

A scab of plaster crunched under Leonid’s boot. But the rest of the house remained still. It felt distinctly empty now. As they finished with the ordeal of the stairs they could see each other’s features clearly in the pinkish-orange glow of fires lowering beyond the broken-out windows.

“There was a door back in the kitchen,” Seryosha said. “That had to be it.”

But as they turned into the downstairs hallway, the lumpish outline of a corpse blocked their path. The dark outline of the helmet identified the body as Soviet.

Leonid and Seryosha edged past the dead soldier, careful to avoid any contact, as though the body bore a special contagion in the darkness.

They found their way to the kitchen. A fluttering glow lit the room where they had happily stuffed themselves just a few hours earlier. Now the room lay in a jagged shambles.

“The door was over there,” Seryosha said, gesturing with the long barrel of the light machine gun. He stopped, and Leonid understood that now it was his turn to go first.

All right, Leonid thought, trying to steel himself. He knew now that he was not a brave man. He felt terribly, unmistakably afraid. He forced his legs to carry him across the room. The door to the basement creaked as he opened it, and the sound seemed so loud that he was sure every enemy soldier in the area must have heard it. He stood indecisively at the top of a black chasm.

“I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black.”

“Here. Take this.” Seryosha poked a small cylinder into Leonid’s hand. It took him a moment before he realized that it was a cigarette lighter, looted from somewhere.

“It’s all right,” Seryosha went on. “I have another one.”

Leonid flicked on the little flame with his left hand, holding his assault rifle at the ready with his right.

“Get the light down out of sight,” Seryosha insisted.

Leonid advanced downward into the darkness, testing the steps. He heard the reassuring noises of Seryosha close behind him. The stairs were narrow and there was no handrail. Leonid shifted his weight, tapping down to find the next level. The small ring of light from the lighter’s flame failed to reach into the depths of the cellar.

Leonid felt his fingers burn, and he let the lighter go out. He halted abruptly.

“What’s the matter?”

“It got too hot,” Leonid whispered. “Just wait a minute.”

The two boys stood in the middle of the stairs, balancing in the darkness. The sound of his own breath seemed like the winter wind to Leonid. As soon as he judged it possible, he ignited the lighter again.

Something moved.

Leonid fired his weapon in the direction of the movement, stumbling down the last few stairs, tripping, falling face down. He scrambled and rolled out of the way, firing haphazardly, until he found a wall against which he could huddle. The noise of the shots fired in the enclosed space echoed and rang in his ears. He felt as though he had been slapped hard on both sides of the head.

Seryosha brought the machine gun to bear. It sounded like a cannon firing. Leonid fired again, emptying his magazine in what he hoped was the right direction.

Someone screamed. Another voice shouted foreign words. Seryosha swept the machine gun through the darkness. But no one fired back. Streaks of light zigzagged crazily in the darkness, pinging and sparking off the walls.

“Stop it,” Leonid shouted, “stop firing.” He had suddenly realized that the ricochets were as likely to kill them as were any enemy actions.

Seryosha ceased firing.

“Surrender,” Leonid screamed at their phantom opponents.

A female voice shrieked in response, rising over the low notes of male groans.

“Surrender,” Leonid shouted, confused, his voice cracking. “Surrender.”

A female voice soared hideously in a strange language, babbling.

“What the hell is going on?” Seryosha said. His voice sounded near panic.

Leonid lifted himself from the floor, all bruised knees and elbows and the burning feel of scraped skin. He lunged toward the foreign voice.

“Surrender,” he ordered, his mind wild with fragments of thoughts that would not connect. He clicked on the lighter.

A heavyset girl stood with her back pressed against the wall, hands clutched to her face. She screamed in an animal fear that Leonid could not understand. It had never occurred to him that anyone might be afraid of him.

A few feet away from the girl, two bodies lay — a crumpled man and the thick form of a woman. The moans had stopped now, and the bodies lay remarkably still, with the man hunched over the woman as though he were shielding her.

It struck Leonid that the broken tapes in his pockets probably belonged to this girl, and he suddenly felt ashamed, as though he had been discovered as a thief.

The girl’s screams wheezed down into sobs. Leonid let the lighter go out, shaking his singed fingers to soothe them. Seryosha clicked on his own lighter. And the girl howled again. She rubbed herself from side to side against the cinderblock wall, as though she wanted to grind herself into it.

“Oh, no,” Leonid said suddenly, as the situation began to come clear to him. “No… I didn’t mean it…” He wished he could make the girl understand. He looked at her, gesturing thoughtlessly with his reeking weapon. “I didn’t mean it,” he repeated. “It was all an accident.”

The girl’s voice welled up again.

Seryosha stepped forward, slapping the girl with the hand that held the lighter. When it went out, Leonid took his turn again, working the flint with his sore fingers.

“Shut up,” Seryosha ordered. “You just shut up.” He slapped the girl again. There was a totally unfamiliar tone in Seryosha’s voice now.

The girl hushed slightly, as though she understood. But Leonid knew she didn’t understand at all.

“I’m sorry,” he told her again, anyway.

“You bet you’re sorry,” Seryosha told him angrily. Then he punched the girl. “Shut up.”

“Stop it,” Leonid told him.

“What do you mean, stop it?” Seryosha asked. “Who are you? You just killed them. Do you realize what’s going to happen to us if somebody hears her and comes down here? They’ll kill us.”

Such a possibility had not occurred to Leonid. Now it reached him in its fullness, stopping him with its power.

The girl sobbed against the wall, bleeding driblets from her lower lip. She had gone beyond words now, and she merely cried, face turned to one side. Her sounds were those of a weakening animal.

Seryosha thrust with the machine gun, jamming its muzzle hard into her chest like a spear. Then he brought the heavy stock around and smashed it into her face. Leonid watched in wonder. With clumsy speed, Seryosha beat the girl to the ground, hitting her so hard with the machine gun that she could not meaningfully resist. She waved a pudgy hand at the descending blows, then toppled to the side, crumpling in on herself. Seryosha brought the butt of the weapon down on her skull with all of his weight behind it. Then he hit her again. And again.

Finally, the boy straightened, gasping for breath.

“Now she won’t tell anybody,” he said.